Friday, August 17, 2012

Third times a charm!

It is almost 11am EST, and I just made myself my third breakfast.   The first one I made was over four hours ago.  Now, this was the third breakfast I made, but the first one I actually was able to eat!  What happened to the other ones - the kids ate them!  My kids are good eaters. I am really happy about that.  My friends and relatives are always amazed at how well my kids eat.  My kids are open to trying new things and rarely complain. They are okay with our two family rules on mealtime: "If something is on your plate, try it. You don't have to eat it all, but you may not complain about it." and "We don't believe in the clean plate club in this house."  I am happy that my kids don't feel forced to eat and get really annoyed when other people who use this "rule" with their kids try to enforce it on mine!  My kids eat when they are hungry and they stop when they are full.  Some days they eat a lot, other days not so much.  Some days I feel like I am in the kitchen all day, other days not so much.

For our first breakfast this morning, I asked the kids who wanted eggs.  No response.  My older two kids do not eat eggs, I know this and I'm fine with it.  They were happy with some cut up fruit.  My youngest had a bowl of cereal, her twin wanted a banana.  So we proceeded. I got the kids settled and I did make myself some eggs (they came out perfectly too - I still do want to take a cooking class on eggs though!).  Then my older two decided they wanted left over tacos.  To me that was gross - tacos at 7am.  But, that is what they wanted and they ate every last bit of the veggies that were on top too.  Then the twins decided they wanted eggs after all.  Then they decided they wanted some fruit too.  What I thought was going to be a quick and easy breakfast turned into a 1/2 hour+ process.

Fast forward a few hours and I realize that I was hungry because I didn't eat breakfast.  Back in the kitchen, I throw a slice of whole grain bread in the toaster and get out the peanut butter.  Just as I'm spreading the peanut butter on, one of the twins comes in "Mama is that for me. Thank you.".  So, I hand him the plate.  Then the other kids come in and are ready for lunch. (We get up really early and they eat lunch early!)  What do they eat, more tacos!  Now, I need to go clean the lettuce off the floor and do another round of dishes!

While I am happy that my kids are good eaters, one thing that does not make me happy is feeling like a short order cook chained to the kitchen!  We do have healthy snack choices both in the fridge and pantry that the kids can reach and get themselves (although this morning Baby B some how convinced her dad to give her a bag of potato chips at 9am! - no worse than eating tacos at 7am right?!).  I would love to hear from other parents some tips and tricks on how you handle this or avoid it in your house!

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great weekend!

Oh - I was able to eat a piece of toast!

2 comments:

  1. That is great that your kids are such good eaters. It is nice that they can reach healthy snacks whenever they are hungry.
    I do not provide choices for breakfast (or any meal). I make all the plates the same (though they have a variety of things, such as eggs, bananas and raisins). If someone does not want something it is no problem...but they will not get a second option. When they are old enough to provide verbal feedback, we may do a vote for a pancake vs. egg dish breakfast or let them take turns deciding. But, they will still not have a menu to choose from where they are all eating different things.
    I remember my parents would occasionally do a 'do it yourself' meal when we were older where we could pick and prepare our own thing which was a lot of fun...but that is years away for our family.

    : 0 ) Theresa
    (Capri + 3)

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  2. Thanks for stopping by Theresa! I'm going to try that prepare your own thing - I think my kids could definitely do it for sandwhiches, left overs or something easy. My oldest used the microwave for the first time the other day (with supervision of course) and was excited about that!

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